From the moment it was announced last summer, the queer community has been excited for members of the Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL) to hit the ice.
As explained by countless scholars, the relationship between women’s sports and queer women is intrinsic, transcending pop culture through media and real life icons. So, it stands to reason that a lot of 2SLGBTQ+ women are excited about a new professional women’s sports league.
The PWHL is made up of six teams. In Canada, Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal each have teams, while stateside, Minnesota, New York and Boston each have a team of their own.
For the inaugural game, which saw Toronto take on New York at Toronto’s Mattamy Athletic Centre on Jan. 1, the PWHL reports that 2.9 million people tuned in to watch the game across Canadian networks.
QUEER TORONTO SHOWS UP FOR WOMEN’S HOCKEY
Veronica Saye is the co-owner of Peaches, a queer-friendly sports bar located on Queen West, or as many members of the 2SLGBTQ+ community affectionately call the area, Queer West, due to its plethora of 2SLGBTQ+ friendly venues. She says the bar had one of the busiest nights in the establishment’s history during a viewing party of a game it hosted on January 5.
“It’s almost like being at the ground floor of the NHL. We only have six teams, we don’t even have names for these teams yet, and we’re seeing this incredible turn out, not just at the games, but with people watching on YouTube, and at different bars,” Saye told Queer & Now on Tuesday.
She shared that Peaches will be showing every game played by the PWHL this season, calling the inaugural season a historic moment for women’s sports.
“It kind of feels like history will be made in a new generation. The NHL is 100 years old, and the PWHL is brand new and we get to watch this happen and develop.”
“The reason that it’s important to us, is because it’s important for the community we support,” Saye explained, adding that Peaches partnered with the Toronto Pride Hockey Tournament to promote and host a watch party.
“We feel so blessed to be able to work with these different queer sports organizations, it makes our hearts sing. That’s an example of community, where we’re all working together for the greater goal, no pun intended, which is for us to be able to create these spaces.”
She shared that the following day, despite not hosting an official watch party, many people showed up hoping to catch the Minnesota vs Montreal game. As per the PWHL, that match actually broke an attendance record for the most-watched professional women’s ice hockey game, with 13,316 people cheering on the women at Minnesota’s Xcel Energy Center.
PEACHES: CURATING A SAFE SPACE FOR SPORTS FANS
The co-owner of Peaches told Queer & Now that her father was a radio broadcaster who announced the play-by-play for the B.C. Lions, and Saye grew up as an avid player and fan of multiple sports.
She shared that as a queer woman who loves sports, she struggled to find places where women felt welcomed and safe within a sports bar environment. Thus, Peaches was born as an effort to curate a sports bar that focused on being a safe space for community. Since opening its doors in October 2022, the bar has become a staple for Toronto’s 2SLGBTQ+ community.
“Our mission is to create a sports bar that is a queer-friendly space, a safe space where ‘othered’ folks can feel safe coming to watch sports, cheer on sports, and focus on women’s sports.”
Peaches is one of a handful of popular queer-friendly bars in Toronto allocated outside of The Village, similar to Three Dollar Bill or Sweaty Betty’s. Saye said that despite being outside of the 2SLGBTQ+ hub at Church and Wellesley, the owners feel blessed to have become a hub for queer folks to relax and unwind.
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“We just want to be a safe space, and we feel incredibly lucky that this has been the reaction and we have really been able to bring people together in this way.”
“In Toronto those spaces for queer women, for femmes, are lacking,” she continued, adding that she is proud to have created a venue where everyone can feel safe and welcome.
The bar is named after the Rockford Peaches baseball team, featured in the cult-classic movie, A League of Their Own.
“We’re just very inspired by female sports, and always have been,” Saye shared. “We feel extremely lucky to be the folks bringing this to the queer community and the Parkdale community.”
“It’s really about inspiring queer folks, femmes, and everyone from all walks of life to show up to support women’s sports,” the co-owner continued. “We’re so happy to provide this space to see people come together, supporting women.”
“The hope for us mostly is to participate in any way we can in the community. Whether that’s the queer community, [or] whether that’s Parkdale,” Saye shared.“We just want to support community.”
